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The suspected year of "Timon of Athens" wavers between 1605 and 1606. What seems indisputable is that the play's manner is Jacobean. Due to the style of the writing, literary scholarship suggests Thomas Middleton had a hand in writing this play. Thomas Middleton is the author of plays such as "Women Beware Women" and "The Revenger's Tragedy". He is a controversial figure in Shakespeare authorship because he is suspected of having edited "Macbeth" and "Measure for Measure". Most literary critics consider "Timon of Athens" to exist in an unfinished state. Parts of the plot are never fully realized, and some scenes read as sketches.

Timon is notable for being the only protagonist of a Shakespeare play with no family or lover. He is defined by three things: bountiful wealth, Athenian nationality, and compulsive generosity. He has many friends, but the opening scene suggests most of the friendships are fair-weather, an idea that lures in the themes of cupidity and hospitality. The play begins with a selection of characters gathered outside of Timon's house, waiting to beg favors or present flattering gifts. The characters are nameless, recorded on the page by profession, which suggests the play is concerned with the different archetypes in a social system based on commercial exchange. What you have, who you know, determines your public status, the only identity that matters to society. Timon appears, as generous as proclaimed. He pays a friend's debt to free him from prison and gives money to a servant to allow him to marry. Only the cynical philosopher named Apemantus doubts the sincerity of Timon's friends. He attends the feast, not out of friendship to Timon but so he can scorn the inanity of Athenian citizens. This places his exchanges with Timon, mostly a sling of hearty insults, on a more sincere note than the words of Timon's self-proclaimed friends. Apemantus's observations contain a prophetic quality, likening the philosopher's role to Shakespeare's soothsayers in the Roman plays. Timon's steward Flavius, who seems to genuinely care about his master's well-being, realizes his master's extravagance will land him in debt. Three creditors arrive to collect their due from Timon. Timon sends servants to procure loans but are met by refusals at every turn. He is now trapped in his house, surrounded by the servants of creditors. At Timon's last dinner party, all his friends show up, only to be served stones and boiling water. Timon curses the flatterers and sycophants and leaves Athens.

 In a parallel plot, the Athenian general Alcibiades pleads with the senate for the life of one of his soldiers who has committed murder. The senate banishes him from Athens. Alcibiades and Timon appear, at this point in the play, as the scapegoats of an arrogant political system.

In the wilderness, Timon discovers a hidden horde of gold. He takes a bit and buries the rest. Act four scene three is an extensive scene, in which a line of visitors come to Timon in the forest, and a disillusioned Timon rails against mankind. Apemantus is one of the visitors. He observes, "The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the extremity of both ends. When thou wast in thy gilt and thy perfume, they mocked thee for too much curiosity: in thy rags thou know'st none, but art despised for the contrary" (319-21). Alcibiades also visits. He needs money for his march against a city that has failed him. Timon donates some gold to the cause.

Alcibiades arrives at Athens, and the senators ask that he come in peace. Alcibiades agrees, deciding to punish only those who have slighted him and Timon. A soldier enters with Timon's epitaph transcribed. It is revealed that Timon died convinced everyone hated him. On the contrary, Alcibiades says, Timon was well-respected. The play ends on an ambiguous note, because one wonders whether Alcibiades fondness for Timon is influenced by their earlier monetary transaction. This suggests that the real value to Timon's story lies somewhere in the middle path our central character never experienced.

Timon's journey from culture to nature also chronicles the question of natural progress in human society. How do natural forces work in the relationship of exchange in a civilization? What do we lose of our humanity as humans make "progress"?

In the 1960s, Peter Brook directed a French language version of the play in which Timon is portrayed as an innocent idealist. Vladimir Nabokov borrowed the phrase "pale fire" from Act IV. iii for the title of a novel. In the same novel, the theme of thievery Timon alludes to threaded into the narrative. In 2008, Glyn Cannon's "Timon's Daughter" premiered in Sydney, Australia. Cannon's play imagines the adventures of Timon's daughter, Alice, when she is taken in by Flauvius who renamed Alan. There is also a 1981 BBC television adaptation on the play. The production is done in Jacobean dress.